Rebuilding the Stitch and Glue Hard Dodger

2005.03.06

Today, I started the Dodger Rebuild. Two reasons, First, I was never happy with the corner posts of the front window. Initially, I had them leaning out to get as much room as possible under the dodger. But, when I lowered it last year, the lines got exaggerated and irked me all year.

The new dodger will have corner posts with lines complementary to the cabin trunk.

The second reason for total rebuild is that I was getting some water penetration in the aft corner posts. The aft attachment point was not strong enough, especially with kids climbing up there. The wood core had cracked and was showing through the epoxy. It was only a matter of time before rot would make it fail. In fact, when I cut it apart yesterday, the corner posts were already quite rotten after one season. They broke off easily once separated from the unitized strength of the rest of the dodger.

It came down so fast using the sawzall, I forgot to take pics until almost the end. Here's a shot of just the wind screen still standing. You can see on the port side where I've cut the corner post to have the line of the cabin trunk.

2005.03.08

Assembling the windshield first. Lots of time to play with kids while the glass cures.

2005.03.09

I decided to try something a little different. Rather than tying the pieces togeter with lots of little stitches, I lined them up and secured the alignment with one tie off. After this cures, I'll fillet the inside and then finally fully tape the outside.

2005.03.10

I spent the day, filleting the inside of the corner posts, then did some resin puttying of the gaps in the outside of the corner posts. I used teak sawdust collected by the belt sander from Bruce's sanding of his toerails for the wood flour. Boy did that go dark on that cedar!

2005.03.13

Today, Bryan Twigg and I made a trip to the boat for a fitting. The windshield and side arms looked great and we measured the angle and depth to which the aft posts would be laid in. On returning to the shop, I glued those up and then began on the arch struts to help give the roof an arched shape. Finally getting to of those glued up, I'll let it cure before adding the second two.

2005.03.19

After several applications of glass, sanding and recoating, the roof is ready to attach to the frame. The final finish work will be done with the frame in place and if I'm very lucky, this time I'll do a good enough job to keep the inside ceiling bright, this time.

2005.03.20

Now that the frame has been attached to the roof, there won't be much visual change to the look until It's painted. There's a thousand and one details to be taken care of in prepping the dodger for painting.

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